15 Republicans joined all Democrats to keep the government open through Dec. 3 and avert a shutdown. They included the usual suspects:
- Blunt
- Burr
- Capito
- Cassidy
- Collins
- Cornyn
- Graham
- Kennedy
- McConnell
- Murkowski
- Romney
- Rounds
- Shelby
- Tillis
- Young
The House voted 254-175 to advance the measure. Just hours earlier, the Senate voted 65-35 — which some call a display of bipartisanship in both chambers, and in the senate’s case – treachery. The only positive aspect was that the debt ceiling was not raised as John Cornyn baulked at going that far. It does include, however, money to resettle Afghan refugees and disaster aid for victims of Hurricane Ida.
Without a spending bill, the federal government would have faced a shutdown beginning Friday. How far from the ideals of the Founding Fathers have we traveled that we should care about the government being open or closed. It has its tentacles in everyone’s lives. And the 15 Republicans above should know better than to throw their hand in with the Big Government socialists on the other side of the aisle.